New York Times: Military Success in Syria Gives Putin Upper Hand in U.S. Proxy War
WASHINGTON — The Syrian military was foundering last year, with thousands of rebel fighters pushing into areas of the country long considered to be government strongholds. The rebel offensive was aided by powerful tank-destroying missiles supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia.
Intelligence assessments circulated in Washington that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, was losing his grip on power.
But then the Russians arrived, bludgeoning C.I.A.-backed rebel forces with an air campaign that has sent them into retreat. And now rebel commanders, clinging to besieged neighborhoods in the divided city of Aleppo, say their shipments of C.I.A.-provided antitank missiles are drying up.
For the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian military for the past year has been in direct combat with rebel forces trained and supplied by the C.I.A. The American-supplied Afghan fighters prevailed during that Cold War conflict. But this time the outcome — thus far — has been different.
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WNU Editor: U.S. policy on Syria has been half-hearted, disorganised, and confusing since day one. I suspect that this has more to do with President Obama's decision to limit U.S. involvement in Syria, and to leave much of the hard decisions and Syrian rebel support to America's allies in the region .... primarily Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. But while Russia may be winning this proxy war .... I am not optimistic about the long term. This is a conflict that is going to last for years, and even if the Syrian regime of Assad does win the major battles, a low intensity conflict .... such as what has been seen in Iraq since the 2003 invasion .... is probably going to be the final outcome.
3 comments:
The Russians never had it so good.
The Russians almost won in Afghanistan.
Another 8 years like Obama and the SA, Hezbo, Iranians and Russian will clean up in Syria. It will look more like Afghanistan without aid to the mujaheddin than Iraq.
Amnesty will squawk like the awkward, flightless nut-cracking birds that they are, but that is about it.
Obama can lose against a rabbit...and I am nice with him.
I don't know Editor,
To believe the U.S. policy is "half-hearted and directionless" dismisses the very real results in favour of "western" aims in the ME.
An Iraq with any semblance of unity is gone. The threat of an independent Libya leading a pan African movement is gone. A major thorn in the side of of U.S./Israeli/GCC policy on the ME -Baathist Syria- is under attack, fragmented, and heavily damaged. Hezbollah, Iran and Russia are committed/tied up and taking casualties in an open ended conflict. Threat of any kind of unified Arab project contrary to "western" designs is currently neutered.
Sure, there have been set-backs. Assad still stands. The Yemenis refuse to say die. Certain Libyans argree to disagree with "western" dictats and Iranian/Russian influence in the region has grown. These set-backs, however, do seem to have more to do with the strengths of these enemies than with U.S. strategy, actions or inactions.
The destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen are parts of a thought out and ruthlessly executed policy that crosses party, administration and temporal boundaries. Some of the tactics are fairly new, such as "leaving the hard decisions" to allies, while some are old hat, such as using representaives of the most aberrant elements of humanity as proxies. Blaming Obama for this or that failing, while useful in critiquing pecularities of his administration or their impacts, don't get us very far in developing an analysis of historical, current and future U.S/"western" goals and actions.
It is no secret that since before the invasion of Iraq there was a goal and strategy laid down in Washington to re-draw the ME. It has been and continues to be executed. True to form, when regime change, threats, subversion don't work it is the people and the country which are targeted for abuse and destruction. The thinking is classic imperialist "if we can't have it, no one will" and "you'll pay for your impudence".
No, I'm afraid I don't see any grand mis-steps in Syria or lack of clarity in Syria. What I see is thought out managed and maintained confusion, chaos and mass immiseration.
The idea that the U.S. is some kind of flawed, mis guided but ultimately altruistic "good guy" leading a posse of similar(anti) heroes against the "bad guys" and their "legion of doom" deviants is a ridiculous false binary that runs cover for arguably the most destructive, barbaric, malevolent plan for world domination since Adolph Hitler complete with false narratives, racist overtones, projection of violent, aberrant proclivities onto adversaries, threats of force during negotiations, agreements in bad faith, perversion and dismissal of laws while holding others to a standard they themselves believe they are above. "We're better cuz we say so and you'll say so too if you know what's good for ya."
Syria is another victim in a long history of crimes. what rankles in her case are the "meddling kids" of our time in the form of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and, make no mistake, China. If there is an examination to be made of why things are not going exactly according to plan in the Levant, more effort should be focused on the goals and plans of U.S./"western"/GCC enemies.
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